I started dragging in 5 alt account characters with the intention of handing their keys over since the keys are not bound. Getting kind of frustrated at the drop rates myself.

noamineo wrote on Oct 9^th, 2020 at 6:49pm:



This is why I like the raid rune system. It would SUCK to have a rune for every quest.. But something LIKE that for named grinding would be good. Some kind of guaranteed progress is the key.

I’m averaging 3 keys per run solo and 4-5 keys per run with 5 alt accounts sitting at the entrance.  I ran it 5 times now and haven’t gotten skunked yet. That doesn’t mean the drop rate is good because obviously people are having problems, but I wonder if there’s something in the settings or in the level difference that SSG hasn’t mentioned.

Level 30 Alchemist running the main quest at 35 with level 24 alts parked at the entrance just to provide dungeon scaling.

I have the dregs of a 30% XP pot running and I have leftover Treasure Hunter potion running since I have a billion of those (all gotten 100% legit). Just the one that gives a bonus to special random lootgen chance. Not the one that gives higher names loot drop rate.

NOTpopejubal wrote on Oct 9^th, 2020 at 7:57pm:



And see this is part of the problem: since the drop rates are not consistent in a recognizable time frame, you always have some players who feel like they "consistently" get good drop rates and others who are in a complete drought that lasts for days. Here on the vault where we can be honest, this is recognizable; but on the toxic motherboards you get asshole forum paladins shouting down every conversation with "WELL I JUST DID A RUN AND I PULLED X, SO YOU MUST BE WRONG!" fuckin forum bitches.


Anyway, this is what I think is happening:

Let's say for the sake of a nice round number that the drop rate for keys is 30%. That means that over 10 runs you should get 3 keys(for you literal-minded folk: I know this is not the actual drop rate, just creating an example).

The problem is, because of SSG's broken RNG, instead of getting 3 keys in 10 runs, you get 0 keys for 70 runs then 1 key a run for the next 30. For the guy who's in the middle of those 70 runs it doesn't feel like keys drop at all, while the guy in the 30 runs feels like the drop rate is much higher than stated(and will report such).

The problem is: since neither is likely to stick around for/document 100 runs, both are going to walk away from the experience with drastically different perceptions of the drop rate. Worse still, SSG is just going to look at the numbers and say "30 keys dropped in 100 runs, the RNG is working correctly" then high-five and compliment each other's moustaches.

And this is why the broken loot mechanics will never be fixed.

I ran 6 times solo so far on a lvl 18 air sorc at 16 and 18th lvl diff and I've gotten at least 1 key every run.

The same toon farms Strinatis handcannon half a dozen times in 3bc whenever I'm 7th lvl and I've been pulling one on average every 3rd time.  At this point, I just drop them in the guild chest.

Told those humble brags just to add that I honestly think there is some hidden "luck" number on our toons and that my main got a good one.  Way too many times I've joined dudes farming groups and pulled exactly what the guy was looking for first run for me to believe the RNG is legit.

But see thats exactly why we need some level of protection from the RNG. Yeah, some people are just going to be consistently unlucky... and eventually those people will get bored and go play something else.

I in fact had the same problem with PnP: consistently, any time I ever tried to do anything, I'd roll between a 3 and a 7(when the difficulty check was usually around 15). It got to the point where I didn't even bother, my characters followed the others around and I just sort of sat there until it was time to do something that didn't require a check. The DM refused to provide any sort of RNG protection, so when we took a break I just never came back. Wasn't fun.

5 Foot Step wrote on Oct 9^th, 2020 at 11:04pm:


I actually own loaded dice and they aren't that consistent. Though the look on the DMs face when he found out why my rogue was 1-shotting everything with pies was priceless...

You can't actually rig a D20 to roll high consistently. Assuming its made according to the modern standard number distribution, even trying to "load" one would more likely result in a dice that consistently roll 8, 2, or 14 just as often(and probably more so given the vaguries of the materials. Even my loaded D6s which will sometimes flip over when someone walks past the table can still roll a 1.




Funny side note: I own amidst my collection a d6 from ancient Persia, 2200 years old. Hand made from lapis lazuli. Modern D6s are always made so that the sum of the two opposite sides add up to 7(6 is on the opposite side of 1, 5-2, etc). This ancient dice lacks that convention. There's also a very interesting variance in the depths of the hand-drilled holes marking the numbers. The hole on the 1 goes almost 1/3rd of the way through the dice, while the holes on the 4 are extremely shallow. The 6 is also right next to the one.

Now, I know, logically, that the 7 convention simply didn't exist, and the vagaries of the hole depths are down to them being hand-drilled.

But, as I sit and stare at it, I like to imagine that, 2200 years ago, some clever gamer was trying to carefully create a loaded dice by modifying the weight distribution. Then, in his very first game, he got caught, punched in the face, and the dice rolled into some cleft where it sat before being unearthed in the 1970s when the records from the antiquities dealer tell me it was found.

Artorias wrote on Oct 9^th, 2020 at 9:32pm:


There was a forum post where Lynnabel said she had to remove this reward system because of saga system and also wanted players to pull the loot from the chests. She was adamant on not bringing this system back so we are stuck with RNG gods forever.

[quote author=4849474B4F484349260 link=1602279820/11#11
I in fact had the same problem with PnP: consistently, any time I ever tried to do anything, I'd roll between a 3 and a 7(when the difficulty check was usually around 15). It got to the point where I didn't even bother, my characters followed the others around and I just sort of sat there until it was time to do something that didn't require a check. [/quote]

When this happens have your character tell NPC's how pissed off your character is at how unlucky he is and it's put his temper on a hair trigger. The first NPC that looks at him funny or says something, attack it and kill it.

Anyway, as I've said before, I'm pretty sure all of the rolls in this game are weighted, and mostly in our favor.

I remember back in the day people made a stink on the old forum and forced Turbine to acknowledge that spell damage was weighted. Someone was able to prove that you could never roll ones on, E.G., the 5d4 the Burning Hands was listed at. So what did Turbine do? They just changed the spell descriptions. So they went to 5d2+2 instead of 5d4 and 10d3+3 instead of 10d6. (They later increased a lot of those numbers in the spell damage balance pass relatively recently. So the 10d6 spells that went to 10d3+3 to admit the weighting are now listed at d6+3 per level. But a spell that didn't get updated in that pass, like Scorching Ray, is still listed at 4d3+12 per ray.)

Also, whenever I've compared a spreadsheet DPS calc to a live in game DPS test, the live numbers are always significantly ahead.

It means if you want them to do something about it, then you need to prove it.

Yeah, nobody is going to GAF about your spreadsheet of 100 pulls. If you want to prove it, dig into the code.